Previews

Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution

Spiffy:

Almost every bit as rich as previous Civ games; fantastically adapted console controls; save function for long games.

Iffy:

Childish character design might confuse the hardcore contingent; games still take a long time.

After a quick glance at Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution, you'd be forgiven for imagining a Playskool version of the classic turn-based strategy game due to the somewhat juvenile approach to its art direction. Bouncy, rendered caricatures of contemporary famous people (like Condoleezza Rice and Martha Stewart) may speak a strange sing-song language called Firax-lish, but make no mistake, this game is very nearly as nuanced and rich as any PC version of Civilization... and its AI every bit as ruthless. While the game might look cute and cuddly, that trick of artistic license belies a genuine attempt to adapt the ancient and revered franchise to consoles.

Small World

While the bulk of Civilization Revolution's underlying mechanics remain fairly unaltered (if a bit hidden under layers of the user-friendly interface), one major departure has been made to make the game more amenable to consoles: the world map is much smaller. Still, this should not be interpreted as "the world map is small," because that would be inaccurate. Developer Firaxis has merely shrunk the world map to make the gameplay tighter and ensure that individual games play out a bit faster. The idea is to get console players to mix it up with other competing civilizations right out of the gate so that marathon 24-hour sessions are not required in order to achieve any of the game's four victory conditions (cultural supremacy, military domination, scientific exploration or economic superiority).

To that end, Civilization Revolution seems remarkably successful: Games typically last somewhere between five and ten hours. Traversing through all of the four different eras (ancient, medieval, industrial and modern) is possible, but games ending in military domination tend to wrap up a bit more quickly. Still achieving a cultural, economic or scientific victory could take the full run of eras and a few more hours as those victories require the building of expensive wonders.

Detailed Report

Although Civilization Revolution is designed to be a fast-paced experience, many of the details from previous Civilization games remain. Your cities maintain cultural borders that can be expanded to engulf other, less-cultured cities; terrain makes a difference in battle with advantages awarded to units attacking from high ground like hills or defending from cover like forests; cities erect structures to boost food production, structure building, money generation and military effectiveness; wonders can be constructed to attract Great People (historical figures that have an impact on your cities' resource production).

Apart from the decreased world size, the major difference between Civ Revolution and past Civ games is in the streamlined interfaced designed specifically for consoles. Civ Revolution will automatically swap through available combat and exploratory units as well as cities as they complete their objectives, but you can still select them individually if you wish. Moving units is accomplished by simply moving a cursor with the left analog stick and pressing the A button (X on PS3); the game will plot the fastest path to your destination.

Of course, with the smaller world map, most units can only move a few squares at a time (at least until later eras where steam ships and flying vehicles make travel faster), so the fastest path is typically just a straight line. At the same time, the miniaturized world also makes it easy to scroll around the planet with the right analog stick (though "fog of war" will block your view of rival civilizations), so the smaller map seems like a welcome improvement.

We haven't been able to test out the multiplayer side of Civilization Revolution, but judging strictly from the single-player campaign, it's already on its way to becoming a great example of how complex strategy games can be amazingly fun on consoles. Due out in early July, Civilization Revolution has already devoured a bit too much of our time with its trademark "just one more turn" approach to the strategy genre.